


who by fire

by franzferdinand



Series: new skin for the old ceremony [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Pre-Relationship, assassin julian, but you don't have to read it that way, everything's the same except julian isn't cmo, he's a spy/assassin - Freeform, so that's a change.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 21:31:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19934821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/franzferdinand/pseuds/franzferdinand
Summary: Dialogue prompt fill for the following:“Who were you sent to kill?”“You.”“Your employer sent you on a suicide mission. They either had great expectations of you or none at all.”





	who by fire

“Who were you sent to kill?” 

“You.” 

“Your employer sent you on a suicide mission. They either had great expectations of you or none at all.”

Julian felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Besides that, there was no physical reaction to betray how he felt. His training and his augmentation meant he was perfectly capable of standing stock-still, never flinching, never even letting his eyes widen unless he willed it. There was nothing to give him away. 

That didn’t explain the smile on the Cardassian’s face like he’d smelled fear. LIke there was blood in the water. 

“Now why’s that?” Julian replied, his voice a blend of reasonable caution and unreasonable affability. His natural nerves ran beneath his skin like ten thousand volts beneath a rubber coating. “Killing a simple tailor doesn’t seem like much of a suicide mission to me.” 

Elim Garak’s smile grew by a few teeth. 

“You, of course, want me to refute you. To explain to you why I am a worthwhile target for a man such as yourself.” 

Julian tipped his head, his own smile the perfect touch shameful. 

“Can you blame me? They always leave the best bits out of those dossiers, you know. It always sounds better from the horse’s mouth, if you’ll pardon the Earth idiom.” 

“I really don’t know what you expect from me.” Damn him, the man was folding shirts during their conversation. Julian had expected to catch him unawares, to case the joint before pulling off his little hit-and-run. He was a traveler, he would’ve explained. His clothes had been positively ruined in transit, and he was desperately in need of a good tailor. 

It had taken Garak moments to see through his lie. That shouldn’t have come as a surprise, yet it did. Normally, Bashir could lie about the color of the sky and bring his conversation partner around to his perspective without much fuss. Not so here. It was bad enough that the damnable space station was so hard to navigate and harder to hide in, but Garak had to cheek to pull the rug out from under him.

“Not much, frankly. Your pictures don’t do you justice. You’re older in real life, and fatter.”  
He was sidling closer, in a way he knew would be impossible to hide. Garak was staying where he was, folding shirts. Glancing at them occasionally, like he had to remind himself of the task. 

“It’s lucky for you,” he continued, “that conversation isn’t a skill that withers with the passage of time. You get to push out that veneer of the threatening, aged spy, still formidable despite how long has passed since your employment ended.” 

“I think you’ll find,” came Garak’s blase reply, “that I lack the complexity to present so many layers. I am who I appear to be, and no more. I am a tailor.” 

“Please,” Julian sniffed, “that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. You may be a tailor now, but that’s far from the only thing on your resume. Elim Garak, former Obsidian Order operative. Accomplished spy. Gifted interrogator. The Prophets' gift to intelligence agencies.” 

If Garak reacted to the invocation of Bajoran gods, he didn’t show it. Perhaps he was used to it by now. 

“And now you’re banished. Relegated to this wreck Bajoran space station. Left to be blamed for every horror of the occupation as though the blood was on your hands personally. Sewing clothes for Bajoran vedeks and dabo girls.” 

Something about Garak’s cold blue eyes, something about the way they were trained on him was making a concerted effort to turn Julian’s stomach. He took a breath and quelled the feeling. He was more than capable of unsettling the man. All he needed was to keep his own head level.

“I really do tire of this, Doctor.” 

“I’m sorry?” Once again, a careful freeze of his face. No cracks.

“It’s something of an insult that you expected your coming to be a surprise. You used your real name on the transit logs at Rotol IV, for goodness’ sake.” 

Rotol IV? That had been months ago. That hadn’t even been business.

“Really, Doctor, you should be thanking the Federation--”

“What the hell are you calling me ‘Doctor’ for?” 

“--after all, it was their presence on this dear little station that made it so easy to identify you. As soon as they establish a presence, they bring all their computers with them. So, you’ve biographied me. I do appreciate the research done by your little organization. There’s nothing like espionage to make a man feel wanted.”

Garak drifted over to a dress form where little scraps of blue fabric were pinned, and began to drape a rich purple cloth over it. He even slipped a little pincushion onto his wrist. Julian felt as though his bones were made of cement, but still he moved closer on instinct. 

“And far be it from my place to avoid passing such a gesture of goodwill forward. So, Julian Subatoi Bashir, I have done some light reading of my own.” 

He smiled like the gleam of a knife in the dark.

“Only twenty-eight. Young, for a man of your skills, but it’s really no surprise. Born in London, England, Earth, to Richard and Amsha Bashir. Genetically augmented at the age of seven. Discovered thirteen years later, in your second year at Starfleet Medical Academy. Expelled immediately, of course. A damned shame, of course. You were on track to become one of the finest doctors in the Federation. Top of your class.” 

The pin that Garak slipped into the dress form seemed to pierce Julian as well, a sharp stinging in the center of his sternum. Julian’s heart was in his throat, but he forced himself not to swallow. None of the man’s knowledge mattered. He would be dead in moments. This taunting lecture would be for nothing. 

“Two more years of dead-end jobs and slammed doors. Then, Starfleet decides it hasn’t had its fill of you, and you’re snapped up once more by Intelligence. A lot of paperwork, to finally get you enlisted again. No laboratories or hospitals for Julian Bashir, however. No one for you to save. Quite the opposite, in fact, once Intelligence pawned you off to Section 31.” 

He paused, as though he expected a reply. None was forthcoming. It was impossible. Julian’s throat was far too full of sandpaper and glass shards to be of any use for speaking. 

“So here you are, finally. Five years later, and you’re once more up-and-coming. Dangerous, Doctor, very dangerous, to be outstanding in an operation like that.” Garak’s smile would have almost looked regretful, if it weren’t for his eyes. “Is this a test, do you think, or do they want their precious little augment off their hands for good?” 

Julian could take no more. No more of hearing this man dissect him with all the care of the surgeon he had tried so desperately to become, ripping him at the seams. He realized with a start that he and Garak were barely two feet apart behind the dress form, and his hand moved of its own accord.

His knife fell from his sleeve and into his hand.

Faster than any human ever could, it was slicing up through the air, Julian twisting to lend it force.  
He did the figures as he went. The knife was six inches long. For a Cardassian, that meant he could slip his knife in between the man’s fifth and sixth rib and pierce his heart. Death in minutes. He could be off the station before Elim Garak took his last breath.

No fancy poisons. No messy explosions. Just a knife, soft flesh, and the meeting of the two.

Until the man caught his wrist. 

It made no sense. Cardassian reflexes were no better than a human’s, and Julian’s own far surpassed both. There was nothing that meant that Garak should ever have had the opportunity to grab him like that save some anomalous slowness on Julian’s part.

 _The pleasure at being known, at being seen for who you are?_ Whispered the voice at the back of his head as Garak wrenched his wrist above his head, twisting as he went so Julian was as good as motionless before him. His other hand had clutched Julian’s other wrist. Between them, Julian’s struggling form was pinned between Garak and the table that had been behind the dress form, covered in fabric samples.

 _No_ , he protested the voice. _I didn’t want this to happen. I wanted to succeed. To see Garak die._

_So why are you letting it happen anyway?_

“Really, my dear Doctor,” Garak, too close for comfort, purred, “you’re going to have to try a little harder than that.”


End file.
